Small Business Stories - A Lemonade Stand
Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on sbtv.com we are coming to you from the 2008 NFIB conference and our nation’s capital the National Small Business Summit and I’m surrounded by a whole group of people here this time. We have the cast and characters and producers and originators of the award winning YouTube NFIB video that was shown and awarded here at the NFIB conference this year. Now, I got to try to characterize this. It shows this lovely young lady Kristin Rieves here a nine year old person at a lemonade stand essentially making the case for small business in America and the NFIB essentially. Now behind her are the producers of the video to directly behind Kristin is Mark Boese. Mark is a instructor where Mark.
Mark Boese: At Florida Community College of Jacksonville.
Alex Fees: All right co producer of this video what do you teach?
Mark Boese: I teach video production.
Alex Fees: Okay and standing beside me is Michael Cottrell he is the other cook- producer of this video Michael is a sculptor.
Michael Cottrell: Yes I teach sculptor and ceramics and also at Florida Community College of Jacksonville.
Alex Fees: All right and cook- producer of this video?
Michael Cottrell: Yes.
Alex Fees: How and how quickly did this project come together?
Michael Cottrell: Mark and I are great at collaborating in, he is come up with the idea, using and laminate stand the kind of central small business as it were, I wrote the copy overnight, and we shot an hour one afternoon and edit it together. We did online as quickly as possible.
Alex Fees: All right now Michael where do the laminate stand come from?
Michael Cottrell: I build the laminate stand as well.
Alex Fees: Is that what you do, is that a part of sculpting and we’re using some of your design and —
Michael Cottrell: When the need arises, I have built props for a few productions and this being the cutest of them.
Alex Fees: There is no question about that. All right Mark we’ll get to your post production here in a minute but first of all Kristin what about your role on this so what are this guys — tell me first so how do you know this guys?
Kristin Reives: From this girl named April that they teach.
Alex Fees: And April knows your mom right?
Kristin Reives: She is like a friend to part of the family.
Alex Fees: Really. So they just showed up one day and said hey Kristin how are you will you make a laminate stand video with us?
Kristin Reives: No April called told them that she would use me and they called my dad and my dad said it’s all right and my dad never new anything about it, she just asked to borrow me and so they took me and they did the video and that’s all.
Alex Fees: I think this next question is kind of and it’s pretty obvious but why did you pick her.
Mark Boese: April who is talking about is one of my students and she had taken photos of her for her digital class that I teach and I’ve remembered here face in the pictures and when that’s perfect for this batch, it’s good age, it’s good everything so.
Alex Fees: All right Mark tell me about the promise.
Mark Boese: We had I guess that was Thursday we had balance ideas of from each other and all of them were very good but not as original as I’m used to and all I did was think of the smallest to small business. I own the coffee shop and okay that small what’s smaller than that and as soon as I said it he’s eyes lit up and I knew we’re on the right track because working in a vacuum doesn’t work for me and bounces of him and he wrote all the copy for that.
Alex Fees: So Michael what was it that was appealing to you about the laminate stand idea.
Michael Cottrell: Well, I just knew that we could do something really significant with the young person expressing some of this relatively complex kind of real world issues an almost and adult terms but with the naivety of the young person expressing that and he did a great job.
Alex Fees: And the criteria with it, it was a 30 second video answering the question, right? What was the question?
Michael Cottrell: What can small business do for you? What do small business do for America?
Alex Fees: Kristin do you memorize your lines?
Kristin Reives: I did a rattle.
Alex Fees: Really, well can you rattle it off for us.
Kristin Reives: Small businesses like mine take many challenges. I saw it was competitions from corporate change. Rising cost of healthcare from my employees, then someone told me about the great watch stuff for the small business, the NFIB. I told them I already had a watchdog but they mean to NFIB supports small business.
Now my business is diving. Small business works for America because the NFIB works for small business.
Alex Fees: Boy, how do you go with this?
Mark Boese: Three weeks.
Alex Fees: Kristin, how do you still remember that?
Kristin Reives: I was practicing over before today.
Alex Fees: Oh really I see. You talked about the watchdog. There’s a dog in the video right? Whose dog is that?
Kristin Reives: It’s his dog.
Alex Fees: Is that your dog Mark?
Mark Boese: Yes, that’s a picture perfect video dog.
Michael Cottrell: Yeah I rescue her when she was born from the alley way and she kind of picked out my demure the meaner I guess and—
Alex Fees: She’s very subtle.
Mark Boese: Yes.
Alex Fees: Okay tell me how this played out here? I understand you guys are saying earlier you kind of did some of this one line at a time for editing purposes is that right.
Mark Boese: Yes and for her, she never read the lines before and I have never read her the lines so as I’m setting up each camera shot Michael is giving her the lines. And feeding them and basically most of them she knelt the first time and he cut them up short that way we could get them all out.
Michael Cottrell: And we’re loosing light so it was late in the evening so and the sun is coming down.
Alex Fees: Did you guys have any idea how you’d be doing against your competition on this.
Michael Cottrell: There were some of the other submissions to competitions already online and some of them were very good so we — but we were confident that we had a good product.
Mark Boese: Yeah I’d voted for couple of the other ones that I enjoyed actually but I thought it would be unfair if I just voted for my own but there are couple of good ones on there.
Alex Fees: Oh, I thought it was hands down I think in the room, they played three of the final and it was pretty clear. We want people preferred. So Mark what would you do with this now. This is pretty well a thought and as far as your students are concerned is it not.
Mark Boese: Yeah I think professors get rapped up too much and their unjust teaching they don’t offer their students enough extra if you just get stock in the classroom with their whole life. If I stay up with technology and keep producing my own videos I stay current with the current technology and current things going on in the market so I can offer that to them I suppose to just again working in a backing.
Michael Cottrell: They get to see that process and some instances participate as well.
Mark Boese: And April is a student. So she was able to actually see how everything went. She’s one of my acceptance student so.
Alex Fees: So in the FNIB YouTube video contest what did you win Michael?
Michael Cottrell: Mark and I have put a $5000.00 cash price and a trip to this lovely conference where we are being treated very well by FNIB friends.
Mark Boese: And Kristin received $1,000.00 and a trip as well for her to be qualified.
Alex Fees: And motor ID here amongst the FNIB members. All right gentlemen Congratulations. I thank you for being here with us Mark.
Mark Boese: Thank you very much.
Alex Fees: And my dear Kristin can I shake your hands again. Thank you. All right Congratulations. These are the YouTube FNIB contest where there’s at FNIB, I’m Alex Fees you’re logged on to sbtv.
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